New South Wales<\/a>,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\u201cThis makes the decision incredibly difficult. After careful consideration, we concluded we could not proceed in a way that would meet the standard our audiences, artists and partners expect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026 event would have been Bluesfest\u2019s 36th year and 34th festival (it was cancelled for two years during the Covid pandemic). The lineup promised the 50th-anniversary reunion of Split Enz, along with top billing acts Earth, Wind & Fire, Parkway Drive, Erykah Badu and The Wailers.<\/p>\n
The fact that a liquidator has been brought in is bad news for ticket holders, who have now become unsecured creditors.<\/p>\n
Unlike standard festival cancellations where refunds are processed automatically by ticketing agencies, the appointment of a liquidator means ticket holders, including those with parking and camping passes, will be treated as creditors in a formal administration.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the NSW government said the decision to cancel the event was \u201cdeeply disappointing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NSW Government takes these matters seriously,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe are currently undertaking an inquiry into the State of Live Music and festivals like Bluesfest, because we know viability for music festivals in particular is an ongoing problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement acknowledged that events like Bluesfest brought substantial economic and cultural benefits to the state including regional NSW by driving visitation, supporting local artists and creating jobs.<\/p>\n
Bluesfest said the cancellation would have significant impact on the northern rivers regional economy.<\/p>\n
It claimed last year\u2019s festival generated about $230m in economic activity across the state, including $130m for the northern rivers region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After more than three decades, Byron Bay\u2019s Bluesfest has been cancelled and a liquidator has been appointed. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-537811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}